March/April 1995

25 years ago tenants
organized, formed coalitions, took to the streets, and won rent control
in Massachusetts.

But, after two and half decades of constant battles against
powerful and wealthy opponents, the tenants lost the war to save rent control.

How did it happen?By Patricia Cantor

In late December 1971, tenants in Cambridge, Massachusetts, demonstrated
in freezing sleet on City Hall steps to demand rent control. They succeeded,
and rent control became the centerpiece of the city's affordable housing
policy. In November 1994, Cambridge landlords accomplished what hundreds
of lawsuits, years of lobbying, and nearly twenty-five years of lost bi-annual
local elections had failed to accomplish  they abolished rent control.
Under the guise of democracy  the state-wide ballot process  they achieved
the undemocratic result of dumping the policy long endorsed by the majority
of those effected by it.

Beginnings in Organizing

Cambridge, like many other cities in the 1960s, saw rising rents displace
long-term lower income residents. Pressures from university expansion,
urban "renewal" land clearance, and manufacturing job loss eroded Cambridge's
traditional industrial base and generated a severe housing crisis. Radicals,
both those from the student movement and those from the "grassroots," began
organizing. They identified rent control as a way to increase stability
and counter the "master plan" to transform working class Cambridge into
"the brain center of the military-industrial complex." In 1969, a referendum
campaign began for a local rent control law, and although the effort failed
because city officials ruled it unlawful, rent control was on the agenda.

By 1970, statewide tenant power passed a law authorizing cities and
towns with populations over 50,000 to enact rent control. Boston, Lynn,
Somerville, and Brookline, in addition to Cambridge, quickly adopted it.
Lynn repealed it in 1974, as did Somerville in 1979. Boston approved vacancy
decontrol in 1974, and Brookline decontrolled most of its units in 1991.
Only Cambridge retained a strong system.

Throughout the 1970s, Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee (CTOC),
which grew out of the 1969 referendum campaign and several successful eviction
blockings, ensured that rent control worked in Cambridge. For nearly a
decade, CTOC was a model class-conscious local organization. Militantly
self-reliant, CTOC raised revenue from members' contributions, from tenants
who participated in its activities, and from other independent sources.
The organization published a tabloid-style monthly newspaper and numerous
informational guides. A tenant union committee organized tenants. A legal
committee provided legal support. CTOC led rallies to protest city-wide
rent increases approved by the rent board and held at least one semi-successful,
city-wide rent strike.

In 1975 the state-wide enabling law was due to expire. Responding to
heavy real estate industry lobbying, the legislature refused to extend
it. But CTOC led the Cambridge fight to enact a home-rule version that
was passed by the City Council and approved by the State Legislature and
then-Governor Michael Dukakis.

By the late 1970s, however, CTOC began to unravel. Internal issues,
as well as the changing political climate, contributed to the organization's
formal dissolution in 1978. When CTOC disbanded, it left a strong rent
control system and history of tenant advocacy and activism.

Loss of Units Brings Stricter Regulation

During the 1970s, landlords sought ways to remove units from control. Since
owner-occupied condominium units were not rent-controlled, widespread condo
conversion began in older buildings. Masterminded by Cambridge anti-rent
control attorney William Walsh, this strategy resulted in the removal of
thousands of units from the rental market.

In response, tenants demanded that removals be restricted and elected
David Sullivan, an activist tenant lawyer, to the City Council in 1978.
By the summer of 1979, Sullivan and other pro-rent control councilors passed
the Removal Permit Ordinance, which strictly regulated removals of controlled
units by requiring proof that a removal would not aggravate the housing
shortage and would benefit "the persons sought to be protected" by the
rent control statute.

By the early 1980s, although the mass movement had faded to a few dedicated
individuals called the Cambridge Tenants Union (CTU), the institutional
structure that years of tenant activity had produced protected thousands
of people. Every two years, Cambridge voters (80% tenants) returned a five-to-four
pro-rent control majority to the nine-member city council. At each election,
rent control was the hottest issue, and reasonable effort and positive
inertia kept it intact.

Landlord Backlash

Although the remaining activists continued to press for pro-tenant positions,
real organizing ceased. Into this vacuum stepped the Small Property Owners
Association (SPOA). Responding to what they claimed was the rent board's
pro-tenant bias and vowing to do away with Cambridge's "inherently onerous
and unfair" rent control laws, a group of property owners, mostly owner-occupants
of small buildings, formed SPOA in 1987.

SPOA began picketing city council meetings, regularly speaking up at
rent board hearings, and organizing other property owners. SPOA representatives
visited radio talk shows and interested reporters and columnists in publicizing
their personal tales of the "horrors" of Cambridge rent control. They displayed
signs at university graduations, wrote letters to local and national newspapers,
and were able to portray themselves as a grassroots organization fighting
for justice and the American way against the "People's Republic of Cambridge."

SPOA also presented a more diverse and superficially appealing picture
than the corresponding tenant activists. They included young and old, black
and white, and women and men in their leadership. Although larger landlords
jumped on the bandwagon and over the years contributed large sums to finance
the organization, SPOA only showcased people who looked sympathetic.

Its first big test came in the 1989 local elections. Sullivan and two
other long-time pro-rent control councilors declined to run, and landlords
succeeded in getting a local ballot question, Proposition 1-2-3, before
the voters. Proposition 1-2-3 would have allowed landlords to sell condo
units to tenants who had lived in their units for two years, thereby converting
the units from rental to owner-occupancy and doing away with a large piece
of the removal ordinance. Proposition 1-2-3's supporters declared that
it gave tenants a "choice" whether to own or rent. But tenants were not
fooled, and Proposition 1-2-3 was defeated two-to-one. Also, for the first
time, voters elected a six-to-three pro-rent control City Council.

SPOA then turned to a legal challenge, filing a many count constitutional
attack on Cambridge's rent control laws. In March 1993, when most of their
claims were dismissed, they began to look for other alternatives.

Meanwhile, from 1989 to 1994, SPOA's media blitz continued. Condo owners
lamented that they were not allowed to live in their units. Reports on
local news programs featured crying elderly widows and immigrant families
contrasted with a few high profile "undeserving tenants," such as a state
supreme court judge and a state legislator with a Cambridge pied-a-terre.
SPOA targeted Cambridge's mayor, a lawyer who stayed on in his rent controlled
apartment after his mother died. Articles in legal and business trade journals
told SPOA's version of cases. By 1994, many people outside of Cambridge
believed that rent control didn't work and that it unfairly harmed landlords.

Few, if any, stories reported that rent control allowed thousands of
people to live in Cambridge by keeping rents at reasonable levels, or that
the rent board's rent adjustment formulas strongly favored landlords, or
that, because the removal permit ordinance eliminated the speculative drive
from the rental market, Cambridge was saved from the 1980s real estate
boom and subsequent bust. No one read about how many SPOA landlords were
able to buy their buildings because rent control kept property prices down.
Although the mayor was portrayed as getting a free ride, the fact that
he was not a wealthy man and had lived in his apartment for years with
his elderly mother was ignored.

The Beginning of the End

In the summer of 1993, SPOA came up with what would turn out to be its
trump: a state-wide initiative campaign to ban rent control. The first
step was to get the state attorney general to certify the ballot question.
Over the objection that the question was unconstitutional under state law
because it only applied to "particular localities" (i.e. those with rent
control), the attorney general approved the question in September 1993.
This paved the way for SPOA  now operating under the name of the Massachusetts
Homeowners Coalition (MHC) for campaign finance purposes  to obtain sufficient
signatures to place the matter on the November 1994 state-wide ballot.
Using local Realtors, paid canvassers, and themselves, MHC barely mustered
the necessary signatures.

The way to a statewide vote, however, was not yet clear. After receiving
permission from the state campaign finance agency, Cambridge and several
individuals filed suit, contending that since the ban only effected localities
that had rent control, the localities exclusion barred it from the initiative
process. The state supreme court (SJC) heard the case in May 1994 and rejected
the argument in July.

"Question 9" would thus appear on the ballot in over three hundred cities
and towns in Massachusetts, although it would affect only Boston, Brookline,
and Cambridge.

The 1994 Campaign

To combat MHC, tenants formed a political action group called the Save
Our Communities Coalition (SOCC). After conducting focus group research,
SOCC chose a strategy that emphasized how the loss of rent control would
impact the elderly, particularly in Boston. The slogan "Bad for Elderly  Bad
for You" appeared on SOCC's bumper stickers and posters. SOCC also organized
several demonstrations and meetings, mostly in Cambridge and Boston, but
received little media coverage. A letter signed by over 60 Cambridge property
owners (homeowners and some owners of rent controlled buildings) supporting
rent control ran as an ad in over 50 newspapers throughout the state.

The American Association of Retired Persons, unions, and a large array
of progressive groups endorsed the "Vote No on 9" campaign. The Boston
Globe editorialized against Question 9, because it would unfairly interfere
with home rule  the rights of cities and towns to fashion local solutions
to local problems  and because it was fundamentally undemocratic to allow
the rest of the state to decide policy for Boston, Brookline and Cambridge.

These efforts, however, lost the contest for monetary support and visibility
to MHC. In an election year where government regulation was portrayed as
the enemy, what better strategy than to use rent control as the prime example
of governmental excess? MHC's logo showed a house with the words "Get Gov't
Out" emblazoned across it. Radio and TV ads focused on a few of SPOA's
prime examples of the "unfairness" of rent control, particularly in Cambridge.
Through its far greater financial resources, its access to radio talk shows,
and its ready-made network of Realtors, MHC was far more able than SOCC
to communicate its message to voters.

On a long election night, the results in eight other ballot questions
came in by midnight, but Question 9 was still too close to call. By dawn,
the news became painfully clear. Although Question 9 failed in Boston,
Brookline, and Cambridge, it won the state by 51 percent, mostly from the
wealthier suburbs and those communities within reach of the Boston media.
As of January 1, 1995, rent control would be banned in Massachusetts.

The Endgame

Perhaps realizing the seriousness of the situation for the first time,
Cambridge tenants stormed the next few City Council meetings and demanded
that a new home rule petition be sent to the state legislature. Tenants
packed City Hall in numbers and diversity unseen since the days of CTOC.
Led by activists still around from then, the relatively new low-income
neighborhood group Eviction Free Zone (EFZ), and the few CTU regulars,
tenants testified to the hardships that the loss of rent control would
bring. Nurses and fire-fighters, parents and children, elders who had lived
in their apartments for over fifty years  all told moving and compelling
stories. And finally, the print and broadcast media began reporting them.

SPOA responded by saying that "the voters had spoken," that SPOA had
won, and that the tenants should accept the results and give up.

Pleased that the vote was so close, reacting to tenant outcries, and
relying on the majority no votes in their communities, officials from Cambridge,
Boston, and Brookline quickly readied home rule petitions. But these officials
also assessed the chances of strong legislation passing and being signed
by Republican Governor William Weld, fresh from a 70 percent election victory.
Although the legislative leadership was supportive, Weld declared he would
veto any new rent control laws.

Given Question 9's January 1, 1995, implementation date and the need
to move a bill through the lame-duck legislature before the session's end
on January 3, the Cambridge City Council met almost daily to craft a plan
that would meet the concerns of tenants, landlords, the legislature, and
the governor. The word from the State House was that if at least six of
the nine council members, including those traditionally opposed to rent
control, could agree on a compromise, it might be approved.

The debate was emotional and intense. The City Council passed a compromise
bill at the eleventh hour before petition needed to be filed at the legislature
the next day. One pro-rent control councilor voted against it and one voted
"present;" three pro-rent control and three anti-rent control councilors
voted for it; and one member, William Walsh, the staunchest anti-rent control
councilor, was not there. On November 15, he had been sentenced for federal
bank fraud, and under state law, deprived of his council seat. The pro-rent
control councilors who supported the compromise agreed that it was a terrible
bill, but the only choice, given that Question 9 would ban rent control
altogether on January 1. As Frank Duehay, the sole remaining councilor
who had voted for rent control in 1970, said in justifying his vote: "This
is one of the saddest days of my life... I have to ask, is it better to
have something or is it better to have absolutely nothing?"

The new law would have provided for decontrol of most units by July
31, 1995, and would have eliminated restrictions on owner-occupancy of
condominiums. It would have kept rent control for five years in buildings
with seven units or more for tenants who were 62 or over, physically handicapped,
or whose incomes were less than 90 percent of the median for Boston. The
petition passed the Massachusetts House of Representatives by enough votes
to override a veto. It passed the state Senate by two votes. SPOA continued
to lobby against it. Governor Weld repeated his intention to veto it.

Meanwhile another challenge, to the legality of the election itself,
was brewing. The nine questions on the 1994 ballot had been the most in
Massachusetts in a long time. Although law requires a summary of each question
to be printed on the ballot, the secretary of state had ruled that the
ballots did not have enough room and that separate summaries could be distributed
at the polls. On election day, except in a handful of towns that still
used paper ballots, voters found ballots listing only question numbers
with a choice of "yes" or "no." No title or description of the subject
matter, much less the actual summary, appeared. Confusion was compounded
because on some ballots a "yes" vote was a vote to change the current law
(such as Question 9), while on others it was a vote to keep the status
quo.

Disturbed by a seemingly flagrant legal violation and responding to
widespread reports of voters not receiving any summaries, supporters of
rent control and another ballot question sued to invalidate the election.
On November 29, 1994, in the first positive legal development for rent-control
supporters in over a year since the ballot question fight began, a Superior
Court judge enjoined the election results from becoming law.

The fate of all the questions was in doubt. Since this obviously had
widespread consequences, the SJC pushed for a full court hearing as soon
as possible. This occurred on December 22.

While the ballot question scenario was unfolding, the home rule petitions
were stalled at the governor's office. Tenant advocates knew they didn't
have enough votes to override a veto. Even if the court ruled that the
summaries did not have to be on the ballot, it could be too late to prevent
rent control from being repealed. Rent control supporters would then have
to start over with a new legislature and a hostile governor.

On December 27, the SJC issued an order approving the omission of the
summaries from the ballot. The injunction against Question 9 remained in
force through the end of the legislative session.

The action shifted back to the State House. The governor repeated that
he would not sign any law that kept rent control. SPOA, along with the
Greater Boston Real Estate Board, kept lobbying against anything other
than the outright ban contained in Question 9. On the afternoon of January
3, Weld announced that he and the real estate industry had reached an agreement
on a transitional law, which, in the words of one legislator, would allow
rent control "to die with dignity." The law technically would apply throughout
the state, because it was not a home rule petition and would not need local
approval; it would also supersede Question 9.

The law immediately decontrolled all units not occupied on November
8, 1994 (election day), by a tenant with an income of 60% or less than
the median for Boston ($21,500 for a single person). For tenants who were
62 or over or disabled, the limit was 80% of the median income ($ 27,950).
The incomes of all persons residing in a unit were counted, and full-time
students were not protected. Rent control for "protected tenants" in buildings
with up to twelve units would end on December 31, 1995; those in buildings
of over twelve units had until December 31, 1996. The rent board lost jurisdiction
over evictions, and removal regulation was eliminated.

Just before midnight on January 3, the legislature enacted the real
estate industry law that killed rent control in Cambridge, Boston, and
Brookline. Governor Weld signed it the next morning.

What Went Wrong?

Some believe that rent control advocates were too rigid, that Cambridge's
failure to "reform" rent control by responding to legitimate landlord complaints
brought the whole system down, that if some provisions had been relaxed,
for example, letting owners live in condos, SPOA would not have been pushed
to the extreme. Others pointed to the inequity of a system that allowed
the mayor and an SJC judge to live in rent controlled apartments while
failing to assure that low-rent units went to those who needed them most.

Of course, mistakes were made. CTU and SOCC had failed to recognize
and adequately respond to the highly visible examples of wealthy/well-placed
tenants living in rent controlled units. This serious underestimation of
public perception deprived tenants of a counter to landlord propaganda.
Additionally, by focusing on the effect of rent control's loss on the elderly,
instead of also making the home rule and basic democracy arguments, SOCC
may have miscalculated. Finally, although CTU purported to speak for Cambridge
tenants, their activists were not organizers, and Cambridge tenants did
not through the years maintain the type of organization that could have
countered SPOA. Even accounting for obvious differences in money and power,
Cambridge tenants lost the initiative before they lost the '94 election.

But it also seems clear that SPOA would not have been satisfied with
reforms that made rent control more favorable to landlords. From the outset,
the group's aim was to defeat rent control in Cambridge, which was evident
from its repeated statements that rent control was both fundamentally unfair
and illegal. Easing various provisions would have only encouraged SPOA
to push for more until the goal was achieved: a free market economy in
Cambridge's rent controlled housing  the same system that laid the groundwork
in the late '60s for tenant organizing that led to rent control.

Renewal

The seeds for rebuilding are now being sown. EFZ has mobilized activists,
including veterans from CTOC, labor struggles and neighborhood issues,
to begin organizing tenant unions. EFZ is training tenants, providing written
materials, offering access to legal advice  in short, re-building a tenants'
movement. It has announced an ambitious "Housing Justice Program" that
seeks to negotiate leases with rent increases tied to tenant incomes and
just cause eviction protection. The Housing Justice Program also calls
for tax abatements for landlords who keep rents at reasonable levels and
a real estate transfer tax to capture some of the profit that will be made
from sales of newly decontrolled properties.

It is too soon to assess the impact of EFZ's efforts, but its leadership
is comprised of respected and experienced tenant advocates. If Cambridge
tenants are to reclaim some of the power they lost when they lost rent
control, only well-organized and broad-based organizations like EFZ can
make that happen.

In the end, Cambridge held off the tide of deregulation longer than
anywhere else, until finally the "get gov't out" fever swept over the city
as well as the rest of the country. But Cambridge activists who fought
to protect tenants for years can be proud that so many people were protected
for so long. And they know from experience that "the struggle continues."

Copyright 1995

Patricia Cantor, who served as counsel to the Cambridge rent board
and was an active member of the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee,
is now an attorney in private practice.

For updates on what happened to affordable housing in Cambridge and the work of EFZ, see Shelterforce#117 and #94.